Archives For Philanthropy

Last week I told you about all the ways we have been supporting Kelsey’s brother, Cole, and his battle with cancer. This week I wanted to share some photos and what’s next for him.

Thanksgiving Celebration

The Saturday after Thanksgiving, we gathered at Kelsey’s grandparents for our traditional Thanksgiving meal and fellowship. But this year was just a little different.

There was an over-abundance of upper lip hair amongst the male species. All of us rallied around for an end-of-Movember celebration. It also marked (close to) the end of Cole’s nine-week chemo treatment.

Kelsey’s grandpa (bottom middle) had never had facial hair, but he stopped shaving to support his grandson (bottom left).

One of the causes near and dear to our hearts recently is men’s health. Kelsey’s brother, Cole, was diagnosed with stage 2 testicular cancer in September. Since we have never dealt with cancer or chemotherapy, we weren’t really sure how best to help.

But it took fairly little effort on my part to start a chain of events that have helped raise awareness and support for him. I only had to set up a profile on Movember.com, post a message to Kelsey’s family on Facebook, and write up a blog post about why I was choosing not to shave my upper lip for the month of November.

Several family members agreed to join in the fun and my brother-in-law passed the details onto a group of his friends. One of his friends organized a benefit at a local establishment for an evening of food and fellowship where donations were taken and part of the profits given to Cole. The Cupcake Store in Mason City, Iowa, even created a mustache cupcake and donated a portion of the proceeds to Cole.

Other family members organized mustache wearables including stick-on mustaches, mustache apparel and scarves. And we’ve been wearing testicular cancer wristbands as well. All symbols help to raise awareness.

It spurred many conversations and apparently inspired a handful of people to join in the support. I knew where my heart was at in all of it. I wanted to be able to show my support for my brother who lives a few hours away. While it is physically hard to help out from a distance, we continue to pray daily for healing, and continue to support him by telling his story, to grow support.

Support can come in so many different ways. So many times we think of it as monetary support, but this being the closest I’ve ever been apart of a cancer battle, it’s so much more than that. Thoughts, prayers and staying up-to-date with family has meant a lot to our family through this time.

While we were home for Thanksgiving, we asked Cole how he was doing. His response… “I’m battling.” He was being real. It’s hard to watch. But, we continue to help anyway we can.

He doesn’t seem to mind talking about it, so we ask lots of questions on how treatments are going, when he feels the best, what’s coming up in the next week, and badger him with text messages when we’re not physically there.

There are two things I know for certain having seen him go through this:

Cancer sucks.

Our family is closer.

Next week, I’ll share some photos and details about the experience.

What causes do you love supporting?

P.S. Have you heard of the upcoming Tube-a-thon? The Tube-a-thon is a live-streamed holiday party featuring huge YouTube stars as well as traditional Hollywood celebrities. On Thursday, Dec. 12 at 6:00 pm PT/9:00 pm ET, viewers can tune into What’s Trending for two full hours of fundraising, music, comedy, performances and lots of surprises from your favorite online stars. Online viewers can tweet along with #Tubeathon or #FiestaMovement, and for every tweet What’s Trending and Fiesta Movement will donate $1 to Covenant House. It’s a fun and easy way to give back this holiday season.

This is a sponsored post and we were compensated for our participation. The opinions expressed are our own. Thank you for reading and supporting Words of Williams.

Eric and I have always wanted to sponsor a child each time we are blessed with our own. When I was at Women of Faith I had the chance to do so through World Vision. The timing was perfect because at that time we had started to feel like we were hanging on to our money too tightly and needed to open our hearts and give more. No matter how tight we think our financial situation is, it’s certainly nothing like this girl’s parents’, halfway across the world.